
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 12, 1991                   TAG: 9104120361
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From The New York Times and The Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

BUSH OFFERS AID TO KURDS

After meeting with European leaders Thursday, President Bush said the United States had reached "total agreement" with them on informal safe havens in northern Iraq where aid would be given to the wave of Kurdish refugees in flight from the Baghdad government of President Saddam Hussein.

The administration's description of the refugee zone it was trying to establish inside Iraq reflected a compromise intended to sidestep difficult problems of international law and regional sensitivities about the nature and future of the area.

The administration backed away from the idea of setting up a Kurdish "enclave" that later might be used as a claim to statehood by Iraq's Kurdish minority and the 20 million Kurds dispersed over five nations in the region.

"We are going forward to give relief to these people where they are," Bush said, speaking at the White House with the European Community president, Jacques Delors, and the acting president of the European Council of Ministers, Jacques Santer.

"We're going to continue to do that and we do not expect any interference from the man in Baghdad," Bush continued. "He knows better than to interfere."

The White House had initially given a lukewarm response to the idea of an enclave for Kurds, but when asked about the plan Thursday, Bush said there was "total agreement" with Britain, the European Community and the U.N. secretary general on the measure.

The talks on the refugees took place Thursday before the U.N. Security Council announced that the formal cease-fire in the Gulf War had started.

The letter formally telling Iraq of the cease-fire, delivered late Thursday at the United Nations, cleared the way for the deployment of a U.N. peace-keeping force and the pullout of American troops from Iraq.

The arrival of advance elements of a 1,440-member U.N. peace-keeping force today could speed the American withdrawal, which is more than 40 percent completed.

U.S. troop strength dropped sharply to 307,000, from a peak of 540,000, the Pentagon said.

U.S. Air Force transport planes were flying out 5,000 troops a day. At the Riyadh Air Base, troops in a makeshift terminal named "Freedom Gate" rushed outside and cheered when their plane arrived.

But the joy was tempered with concern over Iraqi resistance fighters and their sympathizers.

New fighting between Kurdish guerrillas and Iraqi government troops flared around the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, just south of the 36th parallel, the line the Bush administration has set as the southern boundary of the safe-haven zone.

The zone is bounded on the west by Syria, on the east by the Iran and on the north by Turkey.

Britain said it was prepared to push for a U.N. Security Council resolution formally establishing refugee safe havens inside Iraq.

But officials said formal Security Council action could be bypassed if Iraq agreed to let Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar delineate the zones unofficially and send relief workers to organize the refugees in camps for easier food distribution, medical care and eventual return to their homes.

by CNB